Europa Universalis series

The Europa Universalis Series is a series of computer games. Every game in the series is a Real-time Strategy Game in the 4X genre. Players take control of a country over a period of centuries, guiding their decisions. The original game was an adaptation of a very complex board game, and subsequent games have made significant changes to the game mechanics.

With the exception of Europa Universalis Rome (which runs from 280BC to 27AD), the vanilla games all begin at some point in the 15th Century, and end either just before or just after the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars (though there are scenarios allowing you to start the game at a later date). Within each game in the series, the player has some way to do all of the following:

Also, Events and Monarchs are important game mechanics, though they differ significantly between games.

As the series went on, the games added various new features. For example, the first two games had pre-determined monarchs throughout the game, which could sometimes be swapped in or out by events. From EUIII, however, monarchs are generated randomly.